Laboratory demonstration of the triple-grating vector vortex coronagraph

David S. Doelman; Mireille Ouellet; Axel Potier; Garreth Ruane; Kyle Van Gorkom; Sebastiaan Y. Haffert; Ewan S. Douglas; Frans Snik

doi:10.1117/12.2677432

5 October 2023 Laboratory demonstration of the triple-grating vector vortex coronagraph

David S. Doelman, Mireille Ouellet, Axel Potier, Garreth Ruane, Kyle Van Gorkom, Sebastiaan Y. Haffert, Ewan S. Douglas, Frans Snik

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 12680, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets XI; 126802C (2023) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2677432
Event: SPIE Optical Engineering + Applications, 2023, San Diego, California, United States

Conference Poster

Abstract

The future Habitable Worlds Observatory aims to characterize the atmospheres of rocky exoplanets around solar-type stars. The Vector Vortex Coronagraph (VVC) is a main candidate to reach the required contrast of 10⁻¹⁰. However, the VVC requires polarization filtering and every observing band requires a different VVC. The triple-grating vector vortex coronagraph (tgVVC) aims to mitigate these limitations by combining multiple gratings that minimize the polarization leakage over a large spectral bandwidth. In this paper, we present laboratory results of a tgVVC prototype using the In-Air Coronagraphic Testbed (IACT) facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Space Coronagraph Optical Bench (SCoOB) at the University of Arizona Space Astrophysics Lab (UASAL). We study the coronagraphic performance with polarization filtering at 633 nm and reach a similar average contrast of 2 × 10⁻⁸ between 3-18 λ/D at the IACT, and 6 × 10⁻⁸ between 3-14 λ/D at SCoOB. We explore the limitations of the tgVVC by comparing the testbed results. We report on other manufacturing errors and ways to mitigate their impact.

(2023) Published by SPIE. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

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David S. Doelman, Mireille Ouellet, Axel Potier, Garreth Ruane, Kyle Van Gorkom, Sebastiaan Y. Haffert, Ewan S. Douglas, and Frans Snik "Laboratory demonstration of the triple-grating vector vortex coronagraph", Proc. SPIE 12680, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets XI, 126802C (5 October 2023); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2677432

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